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Man o Man. I remember my 21st birthday. I was working with a bunch of raging alcoholics at a Red Robin in college, and everyone I knew gathered to celebrate my impending entrance to manhood. Or at least, legally drinking. However, I can’t imagine being a cute young girl and working at a freakish design house in Portland when I turned 21.

My first thoughts are obviously of Little Miss Sunshine, where grandpa does a little hard-core narcotic to help wind down. I personally don’t see anything wrong with it, as many of the people they describe are lonely and suffering from aging bodies that don’t work like they used to. I’ve got to get my wife’s parents to have some. I just can’t imagine passing a joint back and forth between them, eating brownies and just chilling out for once. But it might make for the best Christmas ever.

Google Analytics is one powerful monster of analytics software, and with their new update, it’s never been easier to use and mine for data. However, that is only part of the analytics story, as many new startups are entering the arena, focusing on different strengths and models.

I’ve recently stumbled upon reinvigorate. It’s a snazzy system, slick graphics, Web 2.0 all over it, and free. If it wasn’t for Google’s recent update, I’m pretty sure I’d start making the migration over to this tool. Since I already have a few years worth of traffic for some older sites with Google, I probably won’t leave there (I was one of the lucky few to get an account the first day they opened it up, before the closed it up again).

But for those looking for something a little cleaner, simpler, faster to process than Google, I present to you reinvigorate.

I’ve been using photoshop for several years now, and while I’m by no means a wizard, I can do the basic stuff and can occasionally bust out some cool shit. However, when it comes to dramatically changing a person, it still baffles me how powerful the tool is. While watching this in high speed makes it look easy, I understand that there is some true wizardry at work here. But that’s like talking about the engineering of a Ferrari, while ignoring how it drives. While this video is an impressive feat for those that know Photoshop, it’s also completely frightening to think about what we’re seeing and accepting as reality.

It’s pretty sad what Hasselhoff is doing to himself. And I both feel for his kid, who’s probably pretty pissed and confused, but I’m also annoyed at the little bastard, and think it’s pretty heartless to tape him like this and upload to youtube… Pretty cold blooded. (supposedly Hoff asked his family to tape him when he relapsed, but that doesn’t mean you upload it to YouTube).

If you’re going to a conference in Portland, and are looking for what you should do after the conference sessions, then look no more. Matt King wrote up a great piece for his comrades who will be coming into the Portland RailsConf next week, and he’s laid out the law on where to eat, what to do, even where to get your significant other a nice gift. It’s a great list, and sure to be very helpful to anyone looking to know what to do while in Portland, Oregon.
His categories are:

So, Wieden+Kennedy is a cool agency. And their school â€œ12â€ is all about being cool and hip and mind-breaking. Here is one of the only things I’ve seen done by them.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s something very romantic about the notion of failing harder. And supposedly, Dan Wieden himself carries a mantra that all of his creatives are worthless to him until they each fail majorly TWO times. He wants them to not be afraid of fear, but to pursue a line so thin, that there must be the occasional slip into failure. Very romantic indeed.

But let us look at this beautiful and excellently done wall. Supposedly containing 100419 drawing pins, and taking over 351 hours to build. DAMN! Considering they had 12 people working on this, that’s 29.25 hours per person, almost a full week of work by 12 individuals. Now, those 12 are paying to go to this school, and I have to say, I’d be pretty damn pissed if I had to pay money to go and push pins into a wall for an entire week, taking off some time to shit and eat and read Lifehacker. And while it’s really cool to look at, is it really going to lead anyone to take more risks? I’d say looking at that, it causes me to say, â€œNevermind, crazy ideas are often the masturbation of their owners, which leave everyone feeling empty and used up after the selfish-ness passes. What’s the point?â€

Does anyone who walks by this really get motivated to take a greater risk? To have courage in the face of losing their job? And in the world of Top-Tier advertising, have the balls to risk a major corporations millions of dollars pursuing something truly crazy? I’m not saying that isn’t a great goal, but does a wall filled with pushpins motivate me into action?

Who knows? I’m sitting here thinking about it, which may cause me into more action than I realize. Just the fact that it was so profound of a concept that I spent 20 minutes beating it with a stick, might mean it is absolutely successful. I don’t know. But I still no I’d hate to spend money to be told to make this.

This is a pretty rad little video that shows the making of NIke’s Second Coming campaign. It’s also interesting in how just having a bunch of guys, walking around, looking important, playing basketball, just looks so frickin’ cool when special lighting, great soundtrack, and all that is used. I wanna be one of them. I guess I’ll buy the shoes and the warm-ups and that’s the closest I can get.

Here is the actual commercial, so you can see what the end process looks like. Also very cool. A little self-important, but that’s what advertising is.